And in making the blog it got me thinking about gigging:
I want to compare two gigs that I
played a couple of years ago, one was paid, one was not.
The first gig was at a tiny little pub
called The Settle Inn. I'd been booked to play last at a regular
monthly event called the Cave of Wonders (which is a fantastic gig
for both performers and audience). I went on, played my forty five
minutes, and it was one of the best gigs I've ever played. It was a
tiny space and the audience were inches from me. They were dancing,
bouncing, singing and I was feeding off their energy. It was hot, it
was sweaty, it was insane, but it was a fantastic gig. I was
fortunate enough to record the whole gig.
The second gig was at a place called
TwentyRocks (now closed) I'd been booked to play a two hour set in
the middle of the afternoon. It was a big place, and it was first
time I'd played that long a set before. The place had recently been
redone as a music venue and it used to be a sports bar. I set up, I
had football on behind me the whole time I was playing, and the place
was empty, other than the odd person requesting Oasis.
One of these gigs was paid, guess which
one?
I got paid £50 for playing at
TwentyRocks. I nearly gave up music after that gig, it was so bad.
I've met a lot of musicians who refuse
to play gigs unless they're paid, and I can see the logic. There's
about dozen of those pictures with text on them floating around
Facebook comparing being a waiter or barman to being a musician and
how unfair it is to not get paid. I get that, we are doing a job, and
most of the time there's transportation, accommodation and food to
think about, it makes sense we should be getting paid to perform to
people.
Paid gigs are tricky though. It depends
on what the venue is looking for. For a while I did a regular slot at
a jazz club in Glasgow. It was £50 per gig, I turned up, I played to
whoever was there, I got paid. There was never any pressure to bring
people, they just expected me to do my job, which I did, and I had a
great time. At its best I was playing to a packed jazz club and I'd
get back to the bar and there'd be drinks waiting for me that
customers had bought (my record was seven G&Ts after a
particularly good night) and at its worst I was playing to the bar
staff at the back of the room and they were really nice guys.
The other side of that was a restaurant
that asked me to play for them as background music. I played to a
basically empty room for two hours, and then the manager was annoyed
at me for not bringing a crowd into his business (he also paid me in
£5 notes which is an asshole thing to do, makes it look like they've
paid you more than they have). The place closed about a month later,
I think I was the only musician to play there.
I should probably address pay-to-play
gigs here. Basically you only get paid if you sell a certain number
of tickets. I hate this. If you're good at plugging and nagging
and/or have a lot of friends it works, if you're like me though, it's
hard. The worst thing is that often there's no scaling for solo
artists and bands, so they both get the same number of tickets to
sell. I once had to shift twenty five tickets for a gig, I was the
only solo artist on the bill. The other bands got twenty five
tickets, but each band member only had to sell five to make up the
numbers. Luckily I've never been charged for not selling my tickets,
my saving grace is that my act tends to impress people.
While I understand the 'don't work for
nothing' ethic, I don't think free gigs should be disregarded. The
difference between being a musician (or indeed any 'arty' job) and a
barman or waiter is that there isn't really an application process.
There's no job interview or CV submission, we have to prove how good
we are by demonstrating our skills, on in some cases, showcasing our
popularity. There's also infinitely less pressure on you to bring
people and it gives you a chance to experiment without worrying about
whether or not the booker will like it or not. Some of my best gigs
have been ones where I haven't been paid.
There is a limit though. If you're only
playing free gigs and more often and not you're playing to an empty
room (as was the case with my first band) you need to reassess. If
you're wanting to make a living from music there needs to be a
feeling of progression. Everyone starts out playing to empty rooms
(or at least they should) but then the rooms fill, and then you start
getting paid and the rooms empty again, only to (hopefully) fill up
again.
Another way of looking at it was put to
me by a friend, he was studying marketing and said playing too many
free gigs can be detrimental. Yes more people will see you regularly,
but when it comes to a gig where you have to charge people to see
you, they're less likely to pay up when they know they can see you,
for free, doing the same set somewhere else the week after. Junebug
(my band) has got around this by only announcing our big ticketed
events in advance, and our free gigs on the day
It's probably worth mentioning open
mics as well. When I was living in Stirling there were two really
good open mic nights every week and I'd try and go along to at least
one of them every week. Becoming a regular at an open mic gives you a
regular crowd, a lot of whom will also be performers, who you can
test new material on. There's one song on my upcoming E.P that went
through three or four different versions, all of which were tested at
the Junk Jam open mic (which I believe is still going on, I really
hope it is)
So in short: paid gigs can be good,
sometimes bad. Free gigs can be good, sometimes bad. Open mics are
awesome
Next week I'll be blogging about making
music for films, as I've spent the last few days working on a
soundtrack and it's essentially all I can think about right now.
Until next time
Devsky
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